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Dr. Neal D. Barnard

Neal D. Barnard, MD, is the president of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC. His most recent book, 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart, is a road map to a healthier diet and was featured in a recent PBS program, Kickstart Your Health.

I first met Dr. Barnard in a grocery store when filming a segment together for a feature documentary I was directing, “Mad Cowboy” (based upon the book by the same title by author Howard Lyman with Glen Merzer). I admired Neal for his outspoken, science-based quest to understand the critical intersections between a healthy diet, a healthy environment and animal protection. He was, and remains one of the most clear-thinking speakers on the subject anywhere in the world, and it was an honor to re-connect with Neal for this conversation for Forbes.

Michael Tobias (MT): Neal, what do you see as some of the most urgent medical issues facing Americans at this point in time?

Dr. Neal Barnard (NB): The biggest killers are still heart disease and cancer. But what has arrived like a tsunami is diabetes. Between 1980 and 2009, diabetes prevalence tripled in the U.S, from 5.6 million to 19.7 million.

MT: The onset is occurring among more and more youth, as I understand it?

NB: Absolutely. It is striking at younger and younger ages. The forecast from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is frightening: one in three people born in 2000 will eventually develop the disease. This is completely uncharted territory.

MT: So what's the “plan?”

NB: The medical burden is bad enough – the average person with diabetes loses well over a decade of life. But the dollars and cents of it are terrible as well. Last year, Americans spent well over $100 billion on diabetes treatment, and that does not include all the indirect costs of time lost from work, lost income, lost taxes, and so on. When Congress debates how to manage its budget shortfall and when businesses agonize over the bottom line, medical costs are a massive part of the problem.